Adding an Auction to Your Site
It's no secret that the world has fallen head over heels in love with online auctions. (eBay has almost single-handedly proven it!) As an active part of the nonprofit sector, you probably know that auctions have long been a staple of charity fundraising. Silent auctions are especially popular as standalone affairs or as add-ons to dinner galas and other live events. Thanks to the power of the Internet, the buck (literally) no longer stops there.
Your organization now can increase the reach and earnings potential of your typical event-specific auction by putting it online. As with other fundraising tools, online auctions come in all shapes and sizes, so you can find the perfect fit for your organization. If you want to know more about eBay, we discuss how to use it in more detail in Book VIII, Chapter 4. In this section, we introduce you several different online auction sites that may be beneficial to you.
Third-party auctions
From one point of view, a third-party auction — the “effortless” auction — is by far the easiest type for your organization to participate in. All you have to do is have your organization selected as a recipient charity. The auction itself is promoted and managed entirely from another company's Web site. These companies continually auction off items and then ration the proceeds to their approved nonprofits. Two examples are BiddingForGood.com and eBay.
The philanthropic auction service BiddingForGood is essentially an online ...
Get Starting an Online Business All-in-One For Dummies®, 3rd Edition now with the O’Reilly learning platform.
O’Reilly members experience books, live events, courses curated by job role, and more from O’Reilly and nearly 200 top publishers.
